The
use of technology in teaching students of all ages will get a
boost from U.Va.'s Curry
School of Education, which recently received $3.6 million
from the U.S. Department of Education.

Two
grants will support the school's efforts to train current and
future teachers to use advanced technology in their classroom
instruction. The Center for Technology and Teacher Education will
receive $2.1 million over the next three years to create and support
digital resource teams, groups of people who research ways for
teachers to implement technology into the classroom. In addition,
education professor Robert McNergney will receive $1.5 million
over three years to boost CaseNet, an online resource for teaching
with technology.

"How
can technology transform teaching unless you figure out a way
to ensure current and future teachers can use it effectively?"
asked Glen Bull, a Curry School professor and co-director of the
Center for Technology and Teacher Education.

The
grant will allow Curry educators to identify technological advances
and prepare teachers to use them.

James
Cooper, Commonwealth Professor of Education and former dean of
the Curry School, said the first step in creating digital resource
teams is finding technological breakthroughs in academic disciplines.
An example he cited is U.Va.'s Virginia Digital History Center,
home of history professor Edward Ayers' nationally acclaimed web
site, "The Valley of the Shadow."

"We
need to identify where digital resource centers in academia exist,
and look at how they can be used in teacher education classes,"
Cooper said.

Once
these centers have been identified, Curry faculty will not only
instruct teachers on how to use them, but also help them develop
lesson plans. Plus they'll share their work with 40 other teacher
education programs nationwide.

"Ultimately,
the centers' research will impact the way children learn,"
Cooper said.

CaseNet
is web-assisted instruction that allows more than 780 students
and 18 teachers nationwide to gain credit or professional development
by enrolling in three courses, "Teaching Across the Content Areas,˛
"Standards of Learning and Assessment˛ and "Using Technology to
Solve Problems in Schools.˛ In addition, teachers can access real-life
classroom situations online and learn how to apply practical knowledge
to solve problems. CaseNet has operated from U.Va. since the spring
of 1996.

U.Va.
is part of a consortium of several universities, public school
systems and companies in North America that are involved in the
project. "The glue that holds us all together is CaseNet,"
McNergney said.

U.Va.
will instruct faculty and staff at the other institutions in the
consortium on how to implement CaseNet, and those organizations
will then train their teachers to use it, he added.

More
information about the Center for Technology and Teacher Education
is at http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/curry/resources/tech/TeacherEd/